Server-side workflow improvement based on client-side data mining

ABSTRACT

An embodiment may involve a server-side log collected by a server device, where the server-side log includes a set of entries indicating a unique identifier, and wherein the unique identifier is assigned to a work item of a server-based application executed by the server device. The embodiment may further involve one or more processors configured to: receive, from a client device disposed upon a network, a client-side log, wherein the client-side log includes operational data related to usage of a client-based application executed by the client device; identify, from the operational data, the client-based application and one or more activities performed by the client-based application; determine that the one or more activities are related to the unique identifier; based on the one or more activities, determine an action that can be taken to improve efficacy of the server-based application; and write, to the persistent storage, a representation of the action.

BACKGROUND

Remote network management platforms are often used by enterprises andother organizations to facilitate workflows—automated or semi-automatedmulti-step processes that occur between any combination of people andcomputing systems. These workflows can be complex, involving numerousstates and transitions therebetween, and may be used by variousindividuals in different roles. As a consequence, when workflows exhibitperformance inefficiencies, such as completion delays, incorrectoutcomes, and/or unexpected cycling, it can be difficult to determinethe root cause of these problems.

SUMMARY

The embodiments herein overcome these and other technical problems bydeploying client-side collectors on endpoint devices employed by usersand collecting information regarding how these users are interactingwith applications as workflows are carried out. When combined withserver-side logs, a more comprehensive view of workflow efficiency canbe determined. Doing so involves correlating a workflow identifierrepresented in the server-side logs with activities captured by theclient-side collectors. Then, a set of rules can be applied to makerecommendations or suggestions for workflow performance improvement.

Accordingly, a first example embodiment may involve persistent storagecontaining a server-side log collected by a server device, wherein theserver-side log includes a set of entries indicating a uniqueidentifier, and wherein the unique identifier is assigned to a work itemof a server-based application executed by the server device. The firstexample embodiment may also involve one or more processors configuredto: receive, from a client device disposed upon a network, a client-sidelog, wherein the client-side log includes operational data related tousage of a client-based application executed by the client device;identify, from the operational data, the client-based application andone or more activities performed by the client-based application;determine that the one or more activities are related to the uniqueidentifier; based on the one or more activities, determine an actionthat can be taken to improve efficacy of the server-based application;and write, to the persistent storage, a representation of the action.

A second example embodiment may involve obtaining, from persistentstorage, a server-side log collected by a server device, wherein theserver-side log includes a set of entries indicating a uniqueidentifier, and wherein the unique identifier is assigned to a work itemof a server-based application executed by the server device. The secondexample embodiment may also involve receiving, from a client devicedisposed upon a network, a client-side log, wherein the client-side logincludes operational data related to usage of a client-based applicationexecuted by the client device. The second example embodiment may alsoinvolve identifying, from the operational data, the client-basedapplication and one or more activities performed by the client-basedapplication. The second example embodiment may also involve determiningthat the one or more activities are related to the unique identifier.The second example embodiment may also involve, based on the one or moreactivities, determining an action that can be taken to improve efficacyof the server-based application. The second example embodiment may alsoinvolve writing, to the persistent storage, a representation of theaction.

In a third example embodiment, an article of manufacture may include anon-transitory computer-readable medium, having stored thereon programinstructions that, upon execution by a computing system, cause thecomputing system to perform operations in accordance with the firstand/or second example embodiment.

In a fourth example embodiment, a computing system may include at leastone processor, as well as memory and program instructions. The programinstructions may be stored in the memory, and upon execution by the atleast one processor, cause the computing system to perform operations inaccordance with the first and/or second example embodiment.

In a fifth example embodiment, a system may include various means forcarrying out each of the operations of the first and/or second exampleembodiment.

These, as well as other embodiments, aspects, advantages, andalternatives, will become apparent to those of ordinary skill in the artby reading the following detailed description, with reference whereappropriate to the accompanying drawings. Further, this summary andother descriptions and figures provided herein are intended toillustrate embodiments by way of example only and, as such, thatnumerous variations are possible. For instance, structural elements andprocess steps can be rearranged, combined, distributed, eliminated, orotherwise changed, while remaining within the scope of the embodimentsas claimed.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 illustrates a schematic drawing of a computing device, inaccordance with example embodiments.

FIG. 2 illustrates a schematic drawing of a server device cluster, inaccordance with example embodiments.

FIG. 3 depicts a remote network management architecture, in accordancewith example embodiments.

FIG. 4 depicts a communication environment involving a remote networkmanagement architecture, in accordance with example embodiments.

FIG. 5A depicts another communication environment involving a remotenetwork management architecture, in accordance with example embodiments.

FIG. 5B is a flow chart, in accordance with example embodiments.

FIG. 6 depicts an example workflow, in accordance with exampleembodiments.

FIG. 7 depicts a state occupancy diagram, in accordance with exampleembodiments.

FIG. 8 depicts an architecture to facilitate workflow improvements, inaccordance with example embodiments.

FIG. 9A depicts a display, in accordance with example embodiments.

FIG. 9B depicts a further display, in accordance with exampleembodiments.

FIG. 10 depicts a table, in accordance with example embodiments.

FIG. 11 depicts a further table, in accordance with example embodiments.

FIG. 12 is a flow chart, in accordance with example embodiments.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

Example methods, devices, and systems are described herein. It should beunderstood that the words “example” and “exemplary” are used herein tomean “serving as an example, instance, or illustration.” Any embodimentor feature described herein as being an “example” or “exemplary” is notnecessarily to be construed as preferred or advantageous over otherembodiments or features unless stated as such. Thus, other embodimentscan be utilized and other changes can be made without departing from thescope of the subject matter presented herein. Accordingly, the exampleembodiments described herein are not meant to be limiting. It will bereadily understood that the aspects of the present disclosure, asgenerally described herein, and illustrated in the figures, can bearranged, substituted, combined, separated, and designed in a widevariety of different configurations. For example, the separation offeatures into “client” and “server” components may occur in a number ofways.

Further, unless context suggests otherwise, the features illustrated ineach of the figures may be used in combination with one another. Thus,the figures should be generally viewed as component aspects of one ormore overall embodiments, with the understanding that not allillustrated features are necessary for each embodiment.

Additionally, any enumeration of elements, blocks, or steps in thisspecification or the claims is for purposes of clarity. Thus, suchenumeration should not be interpreted to require or imply that theseelements, blocks, or steps adhere to a particular arrangement or arecarried out in a particular order.

I. INTRODUCTION

A large enterprise is a complex entity with many interrelatedoperations. Some of these are found across the enterprise, such as humanresources (HR), supply chain, information technology (IT), and finance.However, each enterprise also has its own unique operations that provideessential capabilities and/or create competitive advantages.

To support widely-implemented operations, enterprises typically useoff-the-shelf software applications, such as customer relationshipmanagement (CRM) and human capital management (HCM) packages. However,they may also need custom software applications to meet their own uniquerequirements. A large enterprise often has dozens or hundreds of thesecustom software applications. Nonetheless, the advantages provided bythe embodiments herein are not limited to large enterprises and may beapplicable to an enterprise, or any other type of organization, of anysize.

Many such software applications are developed by individual departmentswithin the enterprise. These range from simple spreadsheets tocustom-built software tools and databases. But the proliferation ofsiloed custom software applications has numerous disadvantages. Itnegatively impacts an enterprise's ability to run and grow itsoperations, innovate, and meet regulatory requirements. The enterprisemay find it difficult to integrate, streamline, and enhance itsoperations due to lack of a single system that unifies its subsystemsand data.

To efficiently create custom applications, enterprises would benefitfrom a remotely-hosted application platform that eliminates unnecessarydevelopment complexity. The goal of such a platform would be to reducetime-consuming, repetitive application development tasks so thatsoftware engineers and individuals in other roles can focus ondeveloping unique, high-value features.

In order to achieve this goal, the concept of Application Platform as aService (aPaaS) is introduced, to intelligently automate workflowsthroughout the enterprise. An aPaaS system is hosted remotely from theenterprise, but may access data, applications, and services within theenterprise by way of secure connections. Such an aPaaS system may have anumber of advantageous capabilities and characteristics. Theseadvantages and characteristics may be able to improve the enterprise'soperations and workflows for IT, HR, CRM, customer service, applicationdevelopment, and security.

The aPaaS system may support development and execution ofmodel-view-controller (MVC) applications. MVC applications divide theirfunctionality into three interconnected parts (model, view, andcontroller) in order to isolate representations of information from themanner in which the information is presented to the user, therebyallowing for efficient code reuse and parallel development. Theseapplications may be web-based, and offer create, read, update, anddelete (CRUD) capabilities. This allows new applications to be built ona common application infrastructure.

The aPaaS system may support standardized application components, suchas a standardized set of widgets for graphical user interface (GUI)development. In this way, applications built using the aPaaS system havea common look and feel. Other software components and modules may bestandardized as well. In some cases, this look and feel can be brandedor skinned with an enterprise's custom logos and/or color schemes.

The aPaaS system may support the ability to configure the behavior ofapplications using metadata. This allows application behaviors to berapidly adapted to meet specific needs. Such an approach reducesdevelopment time and increases flexibility. Further, the aPaaS systemmay support GUI tools that facilitate metadata creation and management,thus reducing errors in the metadata.

The aPaaS system may support clearly-defined interfaces betweenapplications, so that software developers can avoid unwantedinter-application dependencies. Thus, the aPaaS system may implement aservice layer in which persistent state information and other data arestored.

The aPaaS system may support a rich set of integration features so thatthe applications thereon can interact with legacy applications andthird-party applications. For instance, the aPaaS system may support acustom employee-onboarding system that integrates with legacy HR, IT,and accounting systems.

The aPaaS system may support enterprise-grade security. Furthermore,since the aPaaS system may be remotely hosted, it should also utilizesecurity procedures when it interacts with systems in the enterprise orthird-party networks and services hosted outside of the enterprise. Forexample, the aPaaS system may be configured to share data amongst theenterprise and other parties to detect and identify common securitythreats.

Other features, functionality, and advantages of an aPaaS system mayexist. This description is for purpose of example and is not intended tobe limiting.

As an example of the aPaaS development process, a software developer maybe tasked to create a new application using the aPaaS system. First, thedeveloper may define the data model, which specifies the types of datathat the application uses and the relationships therebetween. Then, viaa GUI of the aPaaS system, the developer enters (e.g., uploads) the datamodel. The aPaaS system automatically creates all of the correspondingdatabase tables, fields, and relationships, which can then be accessedvia an object-oriented services layer.

In addition, the aPaaS system can also build a fully-functional MVCapplication with client-side interfaces and server-side CRUD logic. Thisgenerated application may serve as the basis of further development forthe user. Advantageously, the developer does not have to spend a largeamount of time on basic application functionality. Further, since theapplication may be web-based, it can be accessed from anyInternet-enabled client device. Alternatively or additionally, a localcopy of the application may be able to be accessed, for instance, whenInternet service is not available.

The aPaaS system may also support a rich set of pre-definedfunctionality that can be added to applications. These features includesupport for searching, email, templating, workflow design, reporting,analytics, social media, scripting, mobile-friendly output, andcustomized GUIs.

Such an aPaaS system may represent a GUI in various ways. For example, aserver device of the aPaaS system may generate a representation of a GUIusing a combination of HTML and JAVASCRIPT®. The JAVASCRIPT® may includeclient-side executable code, server-side executable code, or both. Theserver device may transmit or otherwise provide this representation to aclient device for the client device to display on a screen according toits locally-defined look and feel. Alternatively, a representation of aGUI may take other forms, such as an intermediate form (e.g., JAVA®byte-code) that a client device can use to directly generate graphicaloutput therefrom. Other possibilities exist.

Further, user interaction with GUI elements, such as buttons, menus,tabs, sliders, checkboxes, toggles, etc. may be referred to as“selection”, “activation”, or “actuation” thereof. These terms may beused regardless of whether the GUI elements are interacted with by wayof keyboard, pointing device, touchscreen, or another mechanism.

An aPaaS architecture is particularly powerful when integrated with anenterprise's network and used to manage such a network. The followingembodiments describe architectural and functional aspects of exampleaPaaS systems, as well as the features and advantages thereof.

II. EXAMPLE COMPUTING DEVICES AND CLOUD-BASED COMPUTING ENVIRONMENTS

FIG. 1 is a simplified block diagram exemplifying a computing device100, illustrating some of the components that could be included in acomputing device arranged to operate in accordance with the embodimentsherein. Computing device 100 could be a client device (e.g., a deviceactively operated by a user), a server device (e.g., a device thatprovides computational services to client devices), or some other typeof computational platform. Some server devices may operate as clientdevices from time to time in order to perform particular operations, andsome client devices may incorporate server features.

In this example, computing device 100 includes processor 102, memory104, network interface 106, and input/output unit 108, all of which maybe coupled by system bus 110 or a similar mechanism. In someembodiments, computing device 100 may include other components and/orperipheral devices (e.g., detachable storage, printers, and so on).

Processor 102 may be one or more of any type of computer processingelement, such as a central processing unit (CPU), a co-processor (e.g.,a mathematics, graphics, or encryption co-processor), a digital signalprocessor (DSP), a network processor, and/or a form of integratedcircuit or controller that performs processor operations. In some cases,processor 102 may be one or more single-core processors. In other cases,processor 102 may be one or more multi-core processors with multipleindependent processing units. Processor 102 may also include registermemory for temporarily storing instructions being executed and relateddata, as well as cache memory for temporarily storing recently-usedinstructions and data.

Memory 104 may be any form of computer-usable memory, including but notlimited to random access memory (RAM), read-only memory (ROM), andnon-volatile memory (e.g., flash memory, hard disk drives, solid statedrives, compact discs (CDs), digital video discs (DVDs), and/or tapestorage). Thus, memory 104 represents both main memory units, as well aslong-term storage. Other types of memory may include biological memory.

Memory 104 may store program instructions and/or data on which programinstructions may operate. By way of example, memory 104 may store theseprogram instructions on a non-transitory, computer-readable medium, suchthat the instructions are executable by processor 102 to carry out anyof the methods, processes, or operations disclosed in this specificationor the accompanying drawings.

As shown in FIG. 1, memory 104 may include firmware 104A, kernel 104B,and/or applications 104C. Firmware 104A may be program code used to bootor otherwise initiate some or all of computing device 100. Kernel 104Bmay be an operating system, including modules for memory management,scheduling and management of processes, input/output, and communication.Kernel 104B may also include device drivers that allow the operatingsystem to communicate with the hardware modules (e.g., memory units,networking interfaces, ports, and buses) of computing device 100.Applications 104C may be one or more user-space software programs, suchas web browsers or email clients, as well as any software libraries usedby these programs. Memory 104 may also store data used by these andother programs and applications.

Network interface 106 may take the form of one or more wirelineinterfaces, such as Ethernet (e.g., Fast Ethernet, Gigabit Ethernet, andso on). Network interface 106 may also support communication over one ormore non-Ethernet media, such as coaxial cables or power lines, or overwide-area media, such as Synchronous Optical Networking (SONET) ordigital subscriber line (DSL) technologies. Network interface 106 mayadditionally take the form of one or more wireless interfaces, such asIEEE 802.11 (Wifi), BLUETOOTH®, global positioning system (GPS), or awide-area wireless interface. However, other forms of physical layerinterfaces and other types of standard or proprietary communicationprotocols may be used over network interface 106. Furthermore, networkinterface 106 may comprise multiple physical interfaces. For instance,some embodiments of computing device 100 may include Ethernet,BLUETOOTH®, and Wifi interfaces.

Input/output unit 108 may facilitate user and peripheral deviceinteraction with computing device 100. Input/output unit 108 may includeone or more types of input devices, such as a keyboard, a mouse, a touchscreen, and so on. Similarly, input/output unit 108 may include one ormore types of output devices, such as a screen, monitor, printer, and/orone or more light emitting diodes (LEDs). Additionally or alternatively,computing device 100 may communicate with other devices using auniversal serial bus (USB) or high-definition multimedia interface(HDMI) port interface, for example.

In some embodiments, one or more computing devices like computing device100 may be deployed to support an aPaaS architecture. The exact physicallocation, connectivity, and configuration of these computing devices maybe unknown and/or unimportant to client devices. Accordingly, thecomputing devices may be referred to as “cloud-based” devices that maybe housed at various remote data center locations.

FIG. 2 depicts a cloud-based server cluster 200 in accordance withexample embodiments. In FIG. 2, operations of a computing device (e.g.,computing device 100) may be distributed between server devices 202,data storage 204, and routers 206, all of which may be connected bylocal cluster network 208. The number of server devices 202, datastorages 204, and routers 206 in server cluster 200 may depend on thecomputing task(s) and/or applications assigned to server cluster 200.

For example, server devices 202 can be configured to perform variouscomputing tasks of computing device 100. Thus, computing tasks can bedistributed among one or more of server devices 202. To the extent thatthese computing tasks can be performed in parallel, such a distributionof tasks may reduce the total time to complete these tasks and return aresult. For purposes of simplicity, both server cluster 200 andindividual server devices 202 may be referred to as a “server device.”This nomenclature should be understood to imply that one or moredistinct server devices, data storage devices, and cluster routers maybe involved in server device operations.

Data storage 204 may be data storage arrays that include drive arraycontrollers configured to manage read and write access to groups of harddisk drives and/or solid state drives. The drive array controllers,alone or in conjunction with server devices 202, may also be configuredto manage backup or redundant copies of the data stored in data storage204 to protect against drive failures or other types of failures thatprevent one or more of server devices 202 from accessing units of datastorage 204. Other types of memory aside from drives may be used.

Routers 206 may include networking equipment configured to provideinternal and external communications for server cluster 200. Forexample, routers 206 may include one or more packet-switching and/orrouting devices (including switches and/or gateways) configured toprovide (i) network communications between server devices 202 and datastorage 204 via local cluster network 208, and/or (ii) networkcommunications between server cluster 200 and other devices viacommunication link 210 to network 212.

Additionally, the configuration of routers 206 can be based at least inpart on the data communication requirements of server devices 202 anddata storage 204, the latency and throughput of the local clusternetwork 208, the latency, throughput, and cost of communication link210, and/or other factors that may contribute to the cost, speed,fault-tolerance, resiliency, efficiency, and/or other design goals ofthe system architecture.

As a possible example, data storage 204 may include any form ofdatabase, such as a structured query language (SQL) database. Varioustypes of data structures may store the information in such a database,including but not limited to tables, arrays, lists, trees, and tuples.Furthermore, any databases in data storage 204 may be monolithic ordistributed across multiple physical devices.

Server devices 202 may be configured to transmit data to and receivedata from data storage 204. This transmission and retrieval may take theform of SQL queries or other types of database queries, and the outputof such queries, respectively. Additional text, images, video, and/oraudio may be included as well. Furthermore, server devices 202 mayorganize the received data into web page or web applicationrepresentations. Such a representation may take the form of a markuplanguage, such as the hypertext markup language (HTML), the extensiblemarkup language (XML), or some other standardized or proprietary format.Moreover, server devices 202 may have the capability of executingvarious types of computerized scripting languages, such as but notlimited to Perl, Python, PHP Hypertext Preprocessor (PHP), Active ServerPages (ASP), JAVASCRIPT®, and so on. Computer program code written inthese languages may facilitate the providing of web pages to clientdevices, as well as client device interaction with the web pages.Alternatively or additionally, JAVA® may be used to facilitategeneration of web pages and/or to provide web application functionality.

III. EXAMPLE REMOTE NETWORK MANAGEMENT ARCHITECTURE

FIG. 3 depicts a remote network management architecture, in accordancewith example embodiments. This architecture includes three maincomponents—managed network 300, remote network management platform 320,and public cloud networks 340—all connected by way of Internet 350.

A. Managed Networks

Managed network 300 may be, for example, an enterprise network used byan entity for computing and communications tasks, as well as storage ofdata. Thus, managed network 300 may include client devices 302, serverdevices 304, routers 306, virtual machines 308, firewall 310, and/orproxy servers 312. Client devices 302 may be embodied by computingdevice 100, server devices 304 may be embodied by computing device 100or server cluster 200, and routers 306 may be any type of router,switch, or gateway.

Virtual machines 308 may be embodied by one or more of computing device100 or server cluster 200. In general, a virtual machine is an emulationof a computing system, and mimics the functionality (e.g., processor,memory, and communication resources) of a physical computer. Onephysical computing system, such as server cluster 200, may support up tothousands of individual virtual machines. In some embodiments, virtualmachines 308 may be managed by a centralized server device orapplication that facilitates allocation of physical computing resourcesto individual virtual machines, as well as performance and errorreporting. Enterprises often employ virtual machines in order toallocate computing resources in an efficient, as needed fashion.Providers of virtualized computing systems include VMWARE® andMICROSOFT®.

Firewall 310 may be one or more specialized routers or server devicesthat protect managed network 300 from unauthorized attempts to accessthe devices, applications, and services therein, while allowingauthorized communication that is initiated from managed network 300.Firewall 310 may also provide intrusion detection, web filtering, virusscanning, application-layer gateways, and other applications orservices. In some embodiments not shown in FIG. 3, managed network 300may include one or more virtual private network (VPN) gateways withwhich it communicates with remote network management platform 320 (seebelow).

Managed network 300 may also include one or more proxy servers 312. Anembodiment of proxy servers 312 may be a server application thatfacilitates communication and movement of data between managed network300, remote network management platform 320, and public cloud networks340. In particular, proxy servers 312 may be able to establish andmaintain secure communication sessions with one or more computationalinstances of remote network management platform 320. By way of such asession, remote network management platform 320 may be able to discoverand manage aspects of the architecture and configuration of managednetwork 300 and its components. Possibly with the assistance of proxyservers 312, remote network management platform 320 may also be able todiscover and manage aspects of public cloud networks 340 that are usedby managed network 300.

Firewalls, such as firewall 310, typically deny all communicationsessions that are incoming by way of Internet 350, unless such a sessionwas ultimately initiated from behind the firewall (i.e., from a deviceon managed network 300) or the firewall has been explicitly configuredto support the session. By placing proxy servers 312 behind firewall 310(e.g., within managed network 300 and protected by firewall 310), proxyservers 312 may be able to initiate these communication sessions throughfirewall 310. Thus, firewall 310 might not have to be specificallyconfigured to support incoming sessions from remote network managementplatform 320, thereby avoiding potential security risks to managednetwork 300.

In some cases, managed network 300 may consist of a few devices and asmall number of networks. In other deployments, managed network 300 mayspan multiple physical locations and include hundreds of networks andhundreds of thousands of devices. Thus, the architecture depicted inFIG. 3 is capable of scaling up or down by orders of magnitude.

Furthermore, depending on the size, architecture, and connectivity ofmanaged network 300, a varying number of proxy servers 312 may bedeployed therein. For example, each one of proxy servers 312 may beresponsible for communicating with remote network management platform320 regarding a portion of managed network 300. Alternatively oradditionally, sets of two or more proxy servers may be assigned to sucha portion of managed network 300 for purposes of load balancing,redundancy, and/or high availability.

B. Remote Network Management Platforms

Remote network management platform 320 is a hosted environment thatprovides aPaaS services to users, particularly to the operator ofmanaged network 300. These services may take the form of web-basedportals, for example, using the aforementioned web-based technologies.Thus, a user can securely access remote network management platform 320from, for example, client devices 302, or potentially from a clientdevice outside of managed network 300. By way of the web-based portals,users may design, test, and deploy applications, generate reports, viewanalytics, and perform other tasks. Remote network management platform320 may also be referred to as a multi-application platform.

As shown in FIG. 3, remote network management platform 320 includes fourcomputational instances 322, 324, 326, and 328. Each of thesecomputational instances may represent one or more server nodes operatingdedicated copies of the aPaaS software and/or one or more databasenodes. The arrangement of server and database nodes on physical serverdevices and/or virtual machines can be flexible and may vary based onenterprise needs. In combination, these nodes may provide a set of webportals, services, and applications (e.g., a wholly-functioning aPaaSsystem) available to a particular enterprise. In some cases, a singleenterprise may use multiple computational instances.

For example, managed network 300 may be an enterprise customer of remotenetwork management platform 320, and may use computational instances322, 324, and 326. The reason for providing multiple computationalinstances to one customer is that the customer may wish to independentlydevelop, test, and deploy its applications and services. Thus,computational instance 322 may be dedicated to application developmentrelated to managed network 300, computational instance 324 may bededicated to testing these applications, and computational instance 326may be dedicated to the live operation of tested applications andservices. A computational instance may also be referred to as a hostedinstance, a remote instance, a customer instance, or by some otherdesignation. Any application deployed onto a computational instance maybe a scoped application, in that its access to databases within thecomputational instance can be restricted to certain elements therein(e.g., one or more particular database tables or particular rows withinone or more database tables).

For purposes of clarity, the disclosure herein refers to the arrangementof application nodes, database nodes, aPaaS software executing thereon,and underlying hardware as a “computational instance.” Note that usersmay colloquially refer to the graphical user interfaces provided therebyas “instances.” But unless it is defined otherwise herein, a“computational instance” is a computing system disposed within remotenetwork management platform 320.

The multi-instance architecture of remote network management platform320 is in contrast to conventional multi-tenant architectures, overwhich multi-instance architectures exhibit several advantages. Inmulti-tenant architectures, data from different customers (e.g.,enterprises) are comingled in a single database. While these customers'data are separate from one another, the separation is enforced by thesoftware that operates the single database. As a consequence, a securitybreach in this system may affect all customers' data, creatingadditional risk, especially for entities subject to governmental,healthcare, and/or financial regulation. Furthermore, any databaseoperations that affect one customer will likely affect all customerssharing that database. Thus, if there is an outage due to hardware orsoftware errors, this outage affects all such customers. Likewise, ifthe database is to be upgraded to meet the needs of one customer, itwill be unavailable to all customers during the upgrade process. Often,such maintenance windows will be long, due to the size of the shareddatabase.

In contrast, the multi-instance architecture provides each customer withits own database in a dedicated computing instance. This preventscomingling of customer data, and allows each instance to beindependently managed. For example, when one customer's instanceexperiences an outage due to errors or an upgrade, other computationalinstances are not impacted. Maintenance down time is limited because thedatabase only contains one customer's data. Further, the simpler designof the multi-instance architecture allows redundant copies of eachcustomer database and instance to be deployed in a geographicallydiverse fashion. This facilitates high availability, where the liveversion of the customer's instance can be moved when faults are detectedor maintenance is being performed.

In some embodiments, remote network management platform 320 may includeone or more central instances, controlled by the entity that operatesthis platform. Like a computational instance, a central instance mayinclude some number of application and database nodes disposed upon somenumber of physical server devices or virtual machines. Such a centralinstance may serve as a repository for specific configurations ofcomputational instances as well as data that can be shared amongst atleast some of the computational instances. For instance, definitions ofcommon security threats that could occur on the computational instances,software packages that are commonly discovered on the computationalinstances, and/or an application store for applications that can bedeployed to the computational instances may reside in a centralinstance. Computational instances may communicate with central instancesby way of well-defined interfaces in order to obtain this data.

In order to support multiple computational instances in an efficientfashion, remote network management platform 320 may implement aplurality of these instances on a single hardware platform. For example,when the aPaaS system is implemented on a server cluster such as servercluster 200, it may operate virtual machines that dedicate varyingamounts of computational, storage, and communication resources toinstances. But full virtualization of server cluster 200 might not benecessary, and other mechanisms may be used to separate instances. Insome examples, each instance may have a dedicated account and one ormore dedicated databases on server cluster 200. Alternatively, acomputational instance such as computational instance 322 may spanmultiple physical devices.

In some cases, a single server cluster of remote network managementplatform 320 may support multiple independent enterprises. Furthermore,as described below, remote network management platform 320 may includemultiple server clusters deployed in geographically diverse data centersin order to facilitate load balancing, redundancy, and/or highavailability.

C. Public Cloud Networks

Public cloud networks 340 may be remote server devices (e.g., aplurality of server clusters such as server cluster 200) that can beused for outsourced computation, data storage, communication, andservice hosting operations. These servers may be virtualized (i.e., theservers may be virtual machines). Examples of public cloud networks 340may include AMAZON WEB SERVICES® and MICROSOFT® AZURE®. Like remotenetwork management platform 320, multiple server clusters supportingpublic cloud networks 340 may be deployed at geographically diverselocations for purposes of load balancing, redundancy, and/or highavailability.

Managed network 300 may use one or more of public cloud networks 340 todeploy applications and services to its clients and customers. Forinstance, if managed network 300 provides online music streamingservices, public cloud networks 340 may store the music files andprovide web interface and streaming capabilities. In this way, theenterprise of managed network 300 does not have to build and maintainits own servers for these operations.

Remote network management platform 320 may include modules thatintegrate with public cloud networks 340 to expose virtual machines andmanaged services therein to managed network 300. The modules may allowusers to request virtual resources, discover allocated resources, andprovide flexible reporting for public cloud networks 340. In order toestablish this functionality, a user from managed network 300 mightfirst establish an account with public cloud networks 340, and request aset of associated resources. Then, the user may enter the accountinformation into the appropriate modules of remote network managementplatform 320. These modules may then automatically discover themanageable resources in the account, and also provide reports related tousage, performance, and billing.

D. Communication Support and Other Operations

Internet 350 may represent a portion of the global Internet. However,Internet 350 may alternatively represent a different type of network,such as a private wide-area or local-area packet-switched network.

FIG. 4 further illustrates the communication environment between managednetwork 300 and computational instance 322, and introduces additionalfeatures and alternative embodiments. In FIG. 4, computational instance322 is replicated, in whole or in part, across data centers 400A and400B. These data centers may be geographically distant from one another,perhaps in different cities or different countries. Each data centerincludes support equipment that facilitates communication with managednetwork 300, as well as remote users.

In data center 400A, network traffic to and from external devices flowseither through VPN gateway 402A or firewall 404A. VPN gateway 402A maybe peered with VPN gateway 412 of managed network 300 by way of asecurity protocol such as Internet Protocol Security (IPSEC) orTransport Layer Security (TLS). Firewall 404A may be configured to allowaccess from authorized users, such as user 414 and remote user 416, andto deny access to unauthorized users. By way of firewall 404A, theseusers may access computational instance 322, and possibly othercomputational instances. Load balancer 406A may be used to distributetraffic amongst one or more physical or virtual server devices that hostcomputational instance 322. Load balancer 406A may simplify user accessby hiding the internal configuration of data center 400A, (e.g.,computational instance 322) from client devices. For instance, ifcomputational instance 322 includes multiple physical or virtualcomputing devices that share access to multiple databases, load balancer406A may distribute network traffic and processing tasks across thesecomputing devices and databases so that no one computing device ordatabase is significantly busier than the others. In some embodiments,computational instance 322 may include VPN gateway 402A, firewall 404A,and load balancer 406A.

Data center 400B may include its own versions of the components in datacenter 400A. Thus, VPN gateway 402B, firewall 404B, and load balancer406B may perform the same or similar operations as VPN gateway 402A,firewall 404A, and load balancer 406A, respectively. Further, by way ofreal-time or near-real-time database replication and/or otheroperations, computational instance 322 may exist simultaneously in datacenters 400A and 400B.

Data centers 400A and 400B as shown in FIG. 4 may facilitate redundancyand high availability. In the configuration of FIG. 4, data center 400Ais active and data center 400B is passive. Thus, data center 400A isserving all traffic to and from managed network 300, while the versionof computational instance 322 in data center 400B is being updated innear-real-time. Other configurations, such as one in which both datacenters are active, may be supported.

Should data center 400A fail in some fashion or otherwise becomeunavailable to users, data center 400B can take over as the active datacenter. For example, domain name system (DNS) servers that associate adomain name of computational instance 322 with one or more InternetProtocol (IP) addresses of data center 400A may re-associate the domainname with one or more IP addresses of data center 400B. After thisre-association completes (which may take less than one second or severalseconds), users may access computational instance 322 by way of datacenter 400B.

FIG. 4 also illustrates a possible configuration of managed network 300.As noted above, proxy servers 312 and user 414 may access computationalinstance 322 through firewall 310. Proxy servers 312 may also accessconfiguration items 410. In FIG. 4, configuration items 410 may refer toany or all of client devices 302, server devices 304, routers 306, andvirtual machines 308, any applications or services executing thereon, aswell as relationships between devices, applications, and services. Thus,the term “configuration items” may be shorthand for any physical orvirtual device, or any application or service remotely discoverable ormanaged by computational instance 322, or relationships betweendiscovered devices, applications, and services. Configuration items maybe represented in a configuration management database (CMDB) ofcomputational instance 322.

As noted above, VPN gateway 412 may provide a dedicated VPN to VPNgateway 402A. Such a VPN may be helpful when there is a significantamount of traffic between managed network 300 and computational instance322, or security policies otherwise suggest or require use of a VPNbetween these sites. In some embodiments, any device in managed network300 and/or computational instance 322 that directly communicates via theVPN is assigned a public IP address. Other devices in managed network300 and/or computational instance 322 may be assigned private IPaddresses (e.g., IP addresses selected from the 10.0.0.0-10.255.255.255or 192.168.0.0-192.168.255.255 ranges, represented in shorthand assubnets 10.0.0.0/8 and 192.168.0.0/16, respectively).

IV. EXAMPLE DEVICE, APPLICATION, AND SERVICE DISCOVERY

In order for remote network management platform 320 to administer thedevices, applications, and services of managed network 300, remotenetwork management platform 320 may first determine what devices arepresent in managed network 300, the configurations and operationalstatuses of these devices, and the applications and services provided bythe devices, as well as the relationships between discovered devices,applications, and services. As noted above, each device, application,service, and relationship may be referred to as a configuration item.The process of defining configuration items within managed network 300is referred to as discovery, and may be facilitated at least in part byproxy servers 312.

For purposes of the embodiments herein, an “application” may refer toone or more processes, threads, programs, client modules, servermodules, or any other software that executes on a device or group ofdevices. A “service” may refer to a high-level capability provided bymultiple applications executing on one or more devices working inconjunction with one another. For example, a high-level web service mayinvolve multiple web application server threads executing on one deviceand accessing information from a database application that executes onanother device.

FIG. 5A provides a logical depiction of how configuration items can bediscovered, as well as how information related to discoveredconfiguration items can be stored. For sake of simplicity, remotenetwork management platform 320, public cloud networks 340, and Internet350 are not shown.

In FIG. 5A, CMDB 500 and task list 502 are stored within computationalinstance 322. Computational instance 322 may transmit discovery commandsto proxy servers 312. In response, proxy servers 312 may transmit probesto various devices, applications, and services in managed network 300.These devices, applications, and services may transmit responses toproxy servers 312, and proxy servers 312 may then provide informationregarding discovered configuration items to CMDB 500 for storagetherein. Configuration items stored in CMDB 500 represent theenvironment of managed network 300.

Task list 502 represents a list of activities that proxy servers 312 areto perform on behalf of computational instance 322. As discovery takesplace, task list 502 is populated. Proxy servers 312 repeatedly querytask list 502, obtain the next task therein, and perform this task untiltask list 502 is empty or another stopping condition has been reached.

To facilitate discovery, proxy servers 312 may be configured withinformation regarding one or more subnets in managed network 300 thatare reachable by way of proxy servers 312. For instance, proxy servers312 may be given the IP address range 192.168.0/24 as a subnet. Then,computational instance 322 may store this information in CMDB 500 andplace tasks in task list 502 for discovery of devices at each of theseaddresses.

FIG. 5A also depicts devices, applications, and services in managednetwork 300 as configuration items 504, 506, 508, 510, and 512. As notedabove, these configuration items represent a set of physical and/orvirtual devices (e.g., client devices, server devices, routers, orvirtual machines), applications executing thereon (e.g., web servers,email servers, databases, or storage arrays), relationshipstherebetween, as well as services that involve multiple individualconfiguration items.

Placing the tasks in task list 502 may trigger or otherwise cause proxyservers 312 to begin discovery. Alternatively or additionally, discoverymay be manually triggered or automatically triggered based on triggeringevents (e.g., discovery may automatically begin once per day at aparticular time).

In general, discovery may proceed in four logical phases: scanning,classification, identification, and exploration. Each phase of discoveryinvolves various types of probe messages being transmitted by proxyservers 312 to one or more devices in managed network 300. The responsesto these probes may be received and processed by proxy servers 312, andrepresentations thereof may be transmitted to CMDB 500. Thus, each phasecan result in more configuration items being discovered and stored inCMDB 500.

In the scanning phase, proxy servers 312 may probe each IP address inthe specified range of IP addresses for open Transmission ControlProtocol (TCP) and/or User Datagram Protocol (UDP) ports to determinethe general type of device. The presence of such open ports at an IPaddress may indicate that a particular application is operating on thedevice that is assigned the IP address, which in turn may identify theoperating system used by the device. For example, if TCP port 135 isopen, then the device is likely executing a WINDOWS® operating system.Similarly, if TCP port 22 is open, then the device is likely executing aUNIX® operating system, such as LINUX®. If UDP port 161 is open, thenthe device may be able to be further identified through the SimpleNetwork Management Protocol (SNMP). Other possibilities exist. Once thepresence of a device at a particular IP address and its open ports havebeen discovered, these configuration items are saved in CMDB 500.

In the classification phase, proxy servers 312 may further probe eachdiscovered device to determine the version of its operating system. Theprobes used for a particular device are based on information gatheredabout the devices during the scanning phase. For example, if a device isfound with TCP port 22 open, a set of UNIX®-specific probes may be used.Likewise, if a device is found with TCP port 135 open, a set ofWINDOWS®-specific probes may be used. For either case, an appropriateset of tasks may be placed in task list 502 for proxy servers 312 tocarry out. These tasks may result in proxy servers 312 logging on, orotherwise accessing information from the particular device. Forinstance, if TCP port 22 is open, proxy servers 312 may be instructed toinitiate a Secure Shell (SSH) connection to the particular device andobtain information about the operating system thereon from particularlocations in the file system. Based on this information, the operatingsystem may be determined. As an example, a UNIX® device with TCP port 22open may be classified as AIX®, HPUX, LINUX®, MACOS®, or SOLARIS®. Thisclassification information may be stored as one or more configurationitems in CMDB 500.

In the identification phase, proxy servers 312 may determine specificdetails about a classified device. The probes used during this phase maybe based on information gathered about the particular devices during theclassification phase. For example, if a device was classified as LINUX®,a set of LINUX®-specific probes may be used. Likewise, if a device wasclassified as WINDOWS® 2012, as a set of WINDOWS®-2012-specific probesmay be used. As was the case for the classification phase, anappropriate set of tasks may be placed in task list 502 for proxyservers 312 to carry out. These tasks may result in proxy servers 312reading information from the particular device, such as basicinput/output system (BIOS) information, serial numbers, networkinterface information, media access control address(es) assigned tothese network interface(s), IP address(es) used by the particular deviceand so on. This identification information may be stored as one or moreconfiguration items in CMDB 500.

In the exploration phase, proxy servers 312 may determine furtherdetails about the operational state of a classified device. The probesused during this phase may be based on information gathered about theparticular devices during the classification phase and/or theidentification phase. Again, an appropriate set of tasks may be placedin task list 502 for proxy servers 312 to carry out. These tasks mayresult in proxy servers 312 reading additional information from theparticular device, such as processor information, memory information,lists of running processes (applications), and so on. Once more, thediscovered information may be stored as one or more configuration itemsin CMDB 500.

Running discovery on a network device, such as a router, may utilizeSNMP. Instead of or in addition to determining a list of runningprocesses or other application-related information, discovery maydetermine additional subnets known to the router and the operationalstate of the router's network interfaces (e.g., active, inactive, queuelength, number of packets dropped, etc.). The IP addresses of theadditional subnets may be candidates for further discovery procedures.Thus, discovery may progress iteratively or recursively.

Once discovery completes, a snapshot representation of each discovereddevice, application, and service is available in CMDB 500. For example,after discovery, operating system version, hardware configuration, andnetwork configuration details for client devices, server devices, androuters in managed network 300, as well as applications executingthereon, may be stored. This collected information may be presented to auser in various ways to allow the user to view the hardware compositionand operational status of devices, as well as the characteristics ofservices that span multiple devices and applications.

Furthermore, CMDB 500 may include entries regarding dependencies andrelationships between configuration items. More specifically, anapplication that is executing on a particular server device, as well asthe services that rely on this application, may be represented as suchin CMDB 500. For example, suppose that a database application isexecuting on a server device, and that this database application is usedby a new employee onboarding service as well as a payroll service. Thus,if the server device is taken out of operation for maintenance, it isclear that the employee onboarding service and payroll service will beimpacted. Likewise, the dependencies and relationships betweenconfiguration items may be able to represent the services impacted whena particular router fails.

In general, dependencies and relationships between configuration itemsmay be displayed on a web-based interface and represented in ahierarchical fashion. Thus, adding, changing, or removing suchdependencies and relationships may be accomplished by way of thisinterface.

Furthermore, users from managed network 300 may develop workflows thatallow certain coordinated activities to take place across multiplediscovered devices. For instance, an IT workflow might allow the user tochange the common administrator password to all discovered LINUX®devices in a single operation.

In order for discovery to take place in the manner described above,proxy servers 312, CMDB 500, and/or one or more credential stores may beconfigured with credentials for one or more of the devices to bediscovered. Credentials may include any type of information needed inorder to access the devices. These may include userid/password pairs,certificates, and so on. In some embodiments, these credentials may bestored in encrypted fields of CMDB 500. Proxy servers 312 may containthe decryption key for the credentials so that proxy servers 312 can usethese credentials to log on to or otherwise access devices beingdiscovered.

The discovery process is depicted as a flow chart in FIG. 5B. At block520, the task list in the computational instance is populated, forinstance, with a range of IP addresses. At block 522, the scanning phasetakes place. Thus, the proxy servers probe the IP addresses for devicesusing these IP addresses, and attempt to determine the operating systemsthat are executing on these devices. At block 524, the classificationphase takes place. The proxy servers attempt to determine the operatingsystem version of the discovered devices. At block 526, theidentification phase takes place. The proxy servers attempt to determinethe hardware and/or software configuration of the discovered devices. Atblock 528, the exploration phase takes place. The proxy servers attemptto determine the operational state and applications executing on thediscovered devices. At block 530, further editing of the configurationitems representing the discovered devices and applications may takeplace. This editing may be automated and/or manual in nature.

The blocks represented in FIG. 5B are examples. Discovery may be ahighly configurable procedure that can have more or fewer phases, andthe operations of each phase may vary. In some cases, one or more phasesmay be customized, or may otherwise deviate from the exemplarydescriptions above.

In this manner, a remote network management platform may discover andinventory the hardware, software, and services deployed on and providedby the managed network. As noted above, this data may be stored in aCMDB of the associated computational instance as configuration items.For example, individual hardware components (e.g., computing devices,virtual servers, databases, routers, etc.) may be represented ashardware configuration items, while the applications installed and/orexecuting thereon may be represented as software configuration items.

The relationship between a software configuration item installed orexecuting on a hardware configuration item may take various forms, suchas “is hosted on”, “runs on”, or “depends on”. Thus, a databaseapplication installed on a server device may have the relationship “ishosted on” with the server device to indicate that the databaseapplication is hosted on the server device. In some embodiments, theserver device may have a reciprocal relationship of “used by” with thedatabase application to indicate that the server device is used by thedatabase application. These relationships may be automatically foundusing the discovery procedures described above, though it is possible tomanually set relationships as well.

The relationship between a service and one or more softwareconfiguration items may also take various forms. As an example, a webservice may include a web server software configuration item and adatabase application software configuration item, each installed ondifferent hardware configuration items. The web service may have a“depends on” relationship with both of these software configurationitems, while the software configuration items have a “used by”reciprocal relationship with the web service. Services might not be ableto be fully determined by discovery procedures, and instead may rely onservice mapping (e.g., probing configuration files and/or carrying outnetwork traffic analysis to determine service level relationshipsbetween configuration items) and possibly some extent of manualconfiguration.

Regardless of how relationship information is obtained, it can bevaluable for the operation of a managed network. Notably, IT personnelcan quickly determine where certain software applications are deployed,and what configuration items make up a service. This allows for rapidpinpointing of root causes of service outages or degradation. Forexample, if two different services are suffering from slow responsetimes, the CMDB can be queried (perhaps among other activities) todetermine that the root cause is a database application that is used byboth services having high processor utilization. Thus, IT personnel canaddress the database application rather than waste time considering thehealth and performance of other configuration items that make up theservices.

V. CMDB IDENTIFICATION RULES AND RECONCILIATION

A CMDB, such as CMDB 500, provides a repository of configuration items,and when properly provisioned, can take on a key role in higher-layerapplications deployed within or involving a computational instance.These applications may relate to enterprise IT service management,operations management, asset management, configuration management,compliance, and so on.

For example, an IT service management application may use information inthe CMDB to determine applications and services that may be impacted bya component (e.g., a server device) that has malfunctioned, crashed, oris heavily loaded. Likewise, an asset management application may useinformation in the CMDB to determine which hardware and/or softwarecomponents are being used to support particular enterprise applications.As a consequence of the importance of the CMDB, it is desirable for theinformation stored therein to be accurate, consistent, and up to date.

A CMDB may be populated in various ways. As discussed above, a discoveryprocedure may automatically store information related to configurationitems in the CMDB. However, a CMDB can also be populated, as a whole orin part, by manual entry, configuration files, and third-party datasources. Given that multiple data sources may be able to update the CMDBat any time, it is possible that one data source may overwrite entriesof another data source. Also, two data sources may each create slightlydifferent entries for the same configuration item, resulting in a CMDBcontaining duplicate data. When either of these occurrences takes place,they can cause the health and utility of the CMDB to be reduced.

In order to mitigate this situation, these data sources might not writeconfiguration items directly to the CMDB. Instead, they may write to anidentification and reconciliation application programming interface(API). This API may use a set of configurable identification rules thatcan be used to uniquely identify configuration items and determinewhether and how they are written to the CMDB.

In general, an identification rule specifies a set of configuration itemattributes that can be used for this unique identification.Identification rules may also have priorities so that rules with higherpriorities are considered before rules with lower priorities.Additionally, a rule may be independent, in that the rule identifiesconfiguration items independently of other configuration items.Alternatively, the rule may be dependent, in that the rule first uses ametadata rule to identify a dependent configuration item.

Metadata rules describe which other configuration items are containedwithin a particular configuration item, or the host on which aparticular configuration item is deployed. For example, a networkdirectory service configuration item may contain a domain controllerconfiguration item, while a web server application configuration itemmay be hosted on a server device configuration item.

A goal of each identification rule is to use a combination of attributesthat can unambiguously distinguish a configuration item from all otherconfiguration items, and is expected not to change during the lifetimeof the configuration item. Some possible attributes for an exampleserver device may include serial number, location, operating system,operating system version, memory capacity, and so on. If a rulespecifies attributes that do not uniquely identify the configurationitem, then multiple components may be represented as the sameconfiguration item in the CMDB. Also, if a rule specifies attributesthat change for a particular configuration item, duplicate configurationitems may be created.

Thus, when a data source provides information regarding a configurationitem to the identification and reconciliation API, the API may attemptto match the information with one or more rules. If a match is found,the configuration item is written to the CMDB. If a match is not found,the configuration item may be held for further analysis.

Configuration item reconciliation procedures may be used to ensure thatonly authoritative data sources are allowed to overwrite configurationitem data in the CMDB. This reconciliation may also be rules-based. Forinstance, a reconciliation rule may specify that a particular datasource is authoritative for a particular configuration item type and setof attributes. Then, the identification and reconciliation API will onlypermit this authoritative data source to write to the particularconfiguration item, and writes from unauthorized data sources may beprevented. Thus, the authorized data source becomes the single source oftruth regarding the particular configuration item. In some cases, anunauthorized data source may be allowed to write to a configuration itemif it is creating the configuration item or the attributes to which itis writing are empty.

Additionally, multiple data sources may be authoritative for the sameconfiguration item or attributes thereof. To avoid ambiguities, thesedata sources may be assigned precedences that are taken into accountduring the writing of configuration items. For example, a secondaryauthorized data source may be able to write to a configuration item'sattribute until a primary authorized data source writes to thisattribute. Afterward, further writes to the attribute by the secondaryauthorized data source may be prevented.

In some cases, duplicate configuration items may be automaticallydetected by reconciliation procedures or in another fashion. Theseconfiguration items may be flagged for manual de-duplication.

VI. EXAMPLE WORKFLOW AND SERVER-SIDE PROCESS DATA MINING

As noted above, workflows can be automated or semi-automated multi-stepprocesses that occur between any combination of people and computingsystems. A given organization can routinely use a large number ofworkflows for various purposes, such as HR onboarding, expenseapprovals, and IT incident management just to name a few.

Workflows may be defined by way of remote network management platform320 as state diagrams. Thus, each workflow may have a number of statesand transitions therebetween. Certain automated actions may be performedin various states, such as setting values, executing a script, sending anotification, starting or stopping a timer, communicating withthird-party remote servers, transitioning to a different state, and soon. Other actions may be triggered by state transitions. Some of theseactions may involve waiting for user input, while others could beautomated.

These workflows may be executed by a computational instance (e.g.,computational instance 322 of remote network management platform 320).Thus, users may interact with workflows by way of one or more userinterfaces of the computational instance. This may involve a user beingnotified by the computational instance (e.g., via email) that theirinput is needed for a particular work item that is in a particular stateof a workflow. The user can then log on to the computational instanceand enter the requested input through an appropriate user interface. Insome cases, the user may also be able to view other parts of theworkflow related to the work item, e.g., its values or actions fromother states and/or a representation of its history.

FIG. 6 depicts an example workflow 600, in which the boxes representdiscrete states and the arrows between these states representtransitions. This workflow represents that of an IT incident. Such anincident may be created by a technology user who has encountered aproblem (e.g., an application not working properly on their laptop, anetwork service that is not reachable) or automatically generated whenan outage is detected. Each incident may progress through this workflowfrom the new state to either the cancelled state or the closed state.The incident may be assigned to an agent who is tasked with addressingthe incident.

The states can be defined as follows. In the new state, the incident hasbeen created but not yet investigated. In the in progress state, theincident has been assigned to an agent, and is being investigated or isscheduled for investigation. In the on hold state, the responsibilityfor the incident shifts temporarily from the assigned to another entity(e.g., the user or another agent) to provide further information,evidence, or a resolution. In the resolved state, the incident has beenaddressed by the agent. In the closed state, the incident has beenconfirmed to be satisfactorily resolved. In the cancelled state, theincident was triaged but found to be a duplicate incident, anunnecessary incident, or not representing an actual problem.

Workflow 600 is just one possible incident management workflow. Othersuch workflows involving more or few states and/or transitions may bepossible. Workflow 600 also serves to represent more complicatedworkflows that go beyond just incident management.

Data related to each work item that is processed by a workflow may belogged, saved, or otherwise stored by the computational instance hostingthe workflow. For example, data related to the states and transitionsused by each work item, how much time each work item stays in eachstate, the user or users associated with each work item, and so on maybe written to one or more logs. These logs may exist as files in afilesystem, entries in a database, or in some other form.

Such logs can later be mined for information regarding how the workflowis carried out in practice. This data mining can be used to identifybottlenecks and other inefficiencies in a workflow that are areas inwhich improvements to the workflow could possibly be made. For example,scripts on the computational instance could be automatically executed ondemand or periodically to process the logs and output a representationof operational aspects of the workflow and/or one or more of itsinefficiencies.

To that point, FIG. 7 depicts state-occupancy diagram 700 for exampleexecutions of workflow 600. A state-occupancy analysis of a workflow maybe carried out by the computational instance in response to a requestfrom a user, such as a process analyst. The computational instance mayparse the logs for the workflow, select a plurality of entries, anddetermine a historical distribution of work items among states of theworkflow. The distribution may also account for transitions betweenstates, thereby enabling transition rates between states to be derived.

The computational instance may generate a graphical representation ofthis distribution, such as that of state-occupancy diagram 700, and thentransmit the generated graphical representation to a computing device ofthe requesting user. With this visual information, the user maytroubleshoot the incident management workflow, and/or to explorepossible improvements to the workflow, for example.

In state-occupancy diagram 700, each state is represented graphically asa circle corresponding to a node. The size of each node may correspondto the occupancy of the associated state (e.g., the number of work itemsin each state). Transitions between states are shown as directed arrows,where the thickness of the each arrow's line corresponds to the numberof transitions. The number of transitions is also indicated for eacharrow. In state-occupancy diagram 700, the on hold state appears to havethe largest occupancy, and the largest number of transitions is from thenew state to the in progress state.

The occupancy of states and numbers of particular state transitions maybe determined by a statistical analysis involving time-averaging overstates and over specified time windows. Transition rates may also bederived from the numbers of transitions and the specified time windows.

A process analyst or other entity may inspect the data in the logsrepresenting state occupancy, or the visual representation ofstate-occupancy diagram 700 to determine workflow inefficiencies.Example inefficiencies may include a large number of work items in aparticular state (e.g., the on hold state of state-occupancy diagram 700being heavily occupied), transitions representing a longer path takenthrough state-occupancy diagram 700 for a large number of work items, orwork items “ping-ponging” in a cycle of two or more states. In somecases, the user interface presented may allow drilling down into the rawdata from the logs and/or determining other factors associated with aworkflow (e.g., the agents assigned to the largest number of incidentsin the on hold state).

From the logs and/or state-occupancy diagram 700, process improvementrecommendations can be made. Such recommendations may includesuggestions of workflow states or transitions that can be automated,workflow states or transitions that can be removed, agents who couldbenefit from training, new software tools that could be employed toimprove the workflow, and so on.

Nonetheless, process data mining from the server-side, while useful,only provides a high-level view of aggregate agent behavior. Forinstance, the log analysis discussed above for incidents may determinethat certain agents tend to be much slower than others at resolvingincidents. But this data cannot answer the question of why this is thecase. It could be that these slower agents are assigned more difficultincidents, have less experience, lack training, or are more methodical.

More relevant and effective workflow improvements can be made if anunderstanding of agent behavior is available. Such an understanding canbe achieved by performing process data mining not only in theserver-side (i.e., on the computational instance), but also on theclient-side (e.g., an agent's client device).

VII. CLIENT-SIDE DATA COLLECTION FRAMEWORK

A client-side collector may be a software application configured to runas an operating system service or in the background on endpoint devicesemployed by workflow users (e.g., laptop computers, desktop computers,tablets, etc.). Further, a client-side collector may be in communicationwith a proxy server, such as proxy server 312. For instance, aclient-side collector may be configured to establish a communicationsession (e.g., a Web Socket or some other form of two-way communication)with a proxy server upon initiation. From time to time, the client-sidecollector may be triggered to execute and collect information regardingits endpoint device. These triggers may be requests received from theproxy server by way of the communication session, based on expiry of atimer on the endpoint device, caused by the agent, or they may take someother form. The acts of collecting information on the endpoint deviceand reporting it to a proxy server may be decoupled (e.g., theinformation may be collected and stored, then later reported).

When it is triggered, the client-side collector may execute one or morecommands and/or read one or more parameters or settings of the endpointdevice. For example, the client-side collector may issue commands by wayof a command line interface (CLI), read configuration or operationalparameters from a database, registry, and/or file system, and so on.Using these techniques, the client-side collector may gather informationrelated to configuration and/or utilization of processor, memory, andstorage resources, lists of installed and/or executing softwareapplications, and/or screen captures of these software applications,just to name a few possibilities.

This information collected by a client-side collector may be sent to aserver device, where it may be combined with server-side logs. Based onclient-side logs that contain client-side information and theserver-side logs, various actions that can be taken to improve theworkflows may be deduced. Doing so allows for a much more detailedunderstanding of the client-side activities that were performed toresolve specific incidents, as well as associating the client-sideactivities with the server-side logs. A summary containing thisinformation (e.g., averages, outliers, etc.) may then facilitateworkflow improvements.

A. Architecture

FIG. 8 depicts architecture 800 to facilitate workflow improvements. Asshown in architecture 800, computational instance 322 and client device802 may be in communication with one another. Architecture 800 is justone example of how workflow improvements can be facilitated. Otherpossible architectures exist.

Client device 802 may contain client-side collector 804. Client-sidecollector 804 may collect and store data about the operations of clientdevice 802, including obtaining and analyzing various informationavailable on the display of client device 802, intercepting client-sideevent messages of client device 802, gathering information on clientdevice 802, or a combination thereof. Client-side logs 806 may then besent to computational instance 322. Computational instance 322 mayprocess this information and then store it, e.g., in a file or adatabase. Computational instance 322 may have already collected andstored server-side logs 808, or server-side logs 808 may be generates orupdated after client-side logs 806 are received.

In some cases, client-side collector 804 may collect data that is laterpost-processed. For example, screen captures collected from clientdevice 802 may undergo post-processing to extract text and/or otherinformation therefrom. The post-processing may be done using clientdevice 802 or using computational instance 322. In the case wherein thepost-processing is done by client device 802, client-side logs 806 mayinclude the results of this post-processing, such as informationextracted from the screen captures (but preferably not the screencaptures themselves). In the case where post-processing is done oncomputational instance 322, the client-side collector 804 may send thescreen captures to computational instance 322 as part of client-sidelogs 806. Additionally or alternatively, the post-processing may be doneon a computing device that is not client device 802 or computationalinstance 322, in which case client device 802 or computational instance322 may transmit client-side logs 806 (e.g., the screen captures) tothis device and receive the analyzed data (e.g., the text extracted fromthe screen captures) from this device.

As described above, computational instance 322 may have access to one ormore databases, which may receive client-side logs 806 and integratethem with server-side logs 808 to provide a more complete representationof the activities involved in each state of a workflow. From thisintegrated data, computational instance 322 may determine one or moreactions that can be taken to improve the efficacy of the workflow. Tothat end, computational instance 322 may compute various statisticalmeasures on the integrated data, such as averages, standard deviations,medians, inter-quartile ranges, distributions of values, and othermeasures that may facilitate determining workflow inefficiencies.Further, computational instance 322 may execute scripts to producegraphics that facilitate identifying workflow inefficiencies and/orexecute other scripts to intelligently analyze the workflow-performancestatistics and identify workflow inefficiencies.

Additionally, communication between client device 802 and computationalinstance 322 may be bidirectional. For example, to start client-sidecollector 804 (e.g., to start performance of screen captures of clientdevice 802), computational instance 322 may send a message to clientdevice 802. Likewise, to pause or stop client-side collector 804 (e.g.,to halt the performance of screen captures of client device 802),computational instance 322 may send a message to client device 802.During or after collection, client device 802 (or client-side collector804) may send client-side logs 806 to computational instance 322.

As mentioned above, client-side collector 804 may collect informationfrom client device 802, but processing of the information may occur oneither client device 802, computational instance 322 (or other server),or a combination thereof. There are advantages and disadvantagesassociated with each, and the actual implementation in this regard mayvary. For example, an advantage of processing information locally onclient device 802 may be that the raw data of screen captures and othercollected information are not transmitted to another device, therebyprotecting privacy of the agent using client device 802 and reducing theamount of data transmitted between client device 802 and computationalinstance 322.

On the other hand, processing the information on computational instance322 (or other server) may allow for the data processing tasks to becentralized at a potentially more powerful computer, therebyfacilitating faster computation times. Data processing may also be splitbetween client device 802 and computational instance 322 (or otherserver), for example, so that more compute-intensive tasks occur on theservers and other data processing tasks occur on client device 802 toprotect agent privacy.

Architecture 800 may take other forms. For example, architecture 800could include multiple client devices, each with a client-side collectorthat collects and sends client-side logs to computational instance 322.Additional arrangements are also possible.

B. Capture and Processing of Client-Side Information

Through executing commands, client-side collector 804 may collectinformation on the operations of client device 802. This information mayinclude obtaining and analyzing various data available on the display ofclient device 802, intercepting client-side event messages (e.g.,application state changes, keyboard or mouse input events, etc.) ofclient device 802, gathering data stored on client device 802, or acombination thereof. The following example illustration focuses oncollecting information from screen captures on client device 802.Nonetheless, and as noted above, information may be collected from othersources on client device 802.

FIGS. 9A and 9B respectively depict example displays 900 and 950, fromwhich client-side collector 804 may capture and/or collect information.Displays 900 and 950 may depict similar graphical user interfaces asarranged by different operating systems.

Display 900 is a representation of a graphical user interface thatincludes a menu bar 902 with logo 904, text items 906, and clock 908.Display 900 also includes an active window 910 depicting an application.Active window 910 includes text 912 in its title bar. Display 900further includes an application selector menu 920 from which variousapplications (represented as single letters) can be selected. Onceselected in this manner, an application will be launched and/or display900 may be modified to show this application as the active window.

Display 950 is a representation of a graphical user interface thatincludes a task bar 952 with application selector menu 954 and clock958. As was the case for display 900, various applications (representedas single letters) can be selected from application selector menu 954,and a selected application will be launched and/or display 950 may bemodified to show this application as the active window. Display 950 alsoincludes an active window 960 depicting an application. Active window960 includes text 962 in its title bar.

While displays 900 and 950 provide largely the same information, they doso in different arrangements. As examples of the differences betweendisplays 900 and 950, display 900 shows application selector menu 920 asa standalone item, while display 950 shows application selector menu 954as part of task bar 952. Display 900 includes logo 904, while display950 does not include such a logo. Display 900 places clock 908 in theupper right corner of its graphical user interface, while display 950places clock 956 in the lower right corner of its graphical userinterface. Other differences exist as well.

Nonetheless, in both of displays 900 and 950, there is enoughinformation that can be processed to infer the activities being taken byan agent viewing and/or interacting with these displays. Thus, screencaptures of such displays can be taken to obtain this information.

Screen captures may be triggered programmatically, for example by way ofsystem calls in software applications that are executing on clientdevice 802. A screen capture may make a copy of the display presented ona graphical user interface, and store this copy to a local file in agraphics format (e.g., as a bitmap, JPG, or PNG file). In some cases,screen captures may capture all of the pixels displayed, and in others ascreen capture may capture a subset thereof (e.g., pixels within aparticular rectangular bounding box or associated with a particularwindow displayed on the graphical user interface). Further, client-sidecollector 804 may be configured or triggered to automatically performscreen captures at some rate (e.g., once per every 5, 10, 20, 30, or 60seconds) and/or a specific number of times.

Regardless, once a screen capture is stored, its graphical data may beanalyzed. Such analysis may utilize the following process: determine theoperating system on which the screen capture was taken (e.g., of clientdevice 802), identify the active application in the screen capture, andidentify how the active application is being used. However, otherprocesses may be used.

Determining the operating system may occur in various ways. Standarddiscovery probes may be able to determine the operating system from openTCP/UDP ports, locations of files, and content of files, readingconfiguration information, and so on. Alternatively, when thisinformation is not available or not easily available, the operatingsystem may be determined from text and/or graphics within the screencapture.

For example, the arrangement of information in a screen capture ofdisplay 900 may be used to determine that the operating system isMACOS®. For instance, the position and/or presence of logo 904 may beenough make this determination. Likewise, the arrangement of informationin a screen capture of display 950 can be used to determine that theoperating system is WINDOWS®. For example, the presence of task bar 952with selector menu 954 and clock 956 may be enough to make thisdetermination. In either case, operating system identification mayinvolve sliding a filter across various parts of a screen capture, byway of a convolutional neural network trained to identify certain typesof operating systems from screen captures, or through some othermechanism.

After having identified the operating system, client side collector 804may locate the active window within a screen capture. For example,client side collector 804 may analyze these screen captures for arectangular box with four corners shown, a window with a slightlydifferent border color than non-active corners, and/or othercharacteristics indicative of an active window. In some cases,procedures for identifying the active window may depend on theidentified operating system, as some operating system graphical userinterfaces may display active windows with different types of borders,colors, or shading. As an alternative to analyzing a screen capture, anoperating system event message or log may be read to identify the activewindow, should the operating system support such procedures.

Further, client side collector 804 may identify the application in theactive window. For example, screen captures may be collected of theentire screen in part or as a whole, and client side collector 804 mayanalyze parts of the active application for identifying features. Thesefeatures may include text patterns, logos, color and shading patterns,and so on. This process could be performed with or without havingidentified the operating system.

The client side collector 804 may also identify and collect otherrelevant data displayed in the screen captures. For example, client sidecollector 804 may obtain a screen capture of display 900 in its entiretyor in part and analyze this screen capture for useful information. Insome implementations, client side collector 804 may use opticalcharacter recognition (OCR) and scripts to obtain a representation ofdata being displayed by the active application.

For example, scripts may analyze the screen capture of display 900 forareas of interest, e.g., text 906 and text 912). These areas of interestmay serve as inputs to an OCR engine. To that point, the text“POWERPOINT” may be obtained from text 906, and the text“EMAIL_SERVER_POWERPOINT.PPTX” may be obtained from text 912. This wouldidentify the active application as MICROSOFT® POWERPOINT® and the nameof the file shown as “EMAIL_SERVER_POWERPOINT.PPTX”. Then the content ofactive window 910 may be further analyzed to determine aspects of thedocument that the agent is viewing.

In addition to information obtained from screen captures, otherinformation on the operations of client device 902 may also becollected. For instance, client side collector 804 may listen forclient-side event messages. These client-side event messages mayindicate events occurring at client device 902, such as left and/orright mouse-clicks and the screen coordinates thereof. For example,client-side collector 804 may detect the location of a mouse cursor(shown in FIGS. 9A and 9B) when the mouse is moved, idle or its buttonsare actuated (clicked). Further, client-side collector 804 may detectkeystrokes and log the specific letter, number, symbol, or characterthat was pressed. Other client-side event messages that may be collectedinclude mouse hovering, mouse-scrolls, clicking away from or clickingonto a specific active window, and so on.

Further, client-side collector 804 may also gather operational data onexecuting applications and processes. For example, if client device 802is executing presentation, word processing, and spreadsheet applicationsat the same time, operational data on the processor usage, memory usage,and network usage may be collected for each of those applications.

Regardless of how this information is collected, it may be associatedwith states or transitions in a workflow being carried out oncomputational instance. Such a workflow may have a unique identifier perwork item, which may take the form of letters, numbers, symbols,filenames, title, manual tags, and so on. For example, an incidentmanagement workflow may involve an incident work item with a uniqueidentifier of “INC0012345”. A link between the workflow state and agentactivities may be established through a variety of methods.

One way in which the link between the workflow state and agentactivities may be established is by requesting that the agent specifythe unique identifier by way of an application on the client device(e.g., a user interface of client-side collector 804) when they beginwork on a particular work item. Then, any information collected onclient device 802 will be associated with this unique identifier untilthe agent indicates that they are no longer working on that work item.The association is made explicit in client-side logs 806 so thatcomputational instance 322 can later correlate events and information inclient-side logs 806 relating to this unique identifier with events andinformation in server-side logs 808 that also related to the uniqueidentifier.

Another way in which a link between the workflow state and agentactivities may be established is through timestamping informationwritten to client-side logs 806 and server-side logs 808. For example,the agent may indicate when they begin and end a task through using anapplication, such as client-side collector 804. Alternatively oradditionally, screen captures from client device 802 may be timestamped,recording the times of their capture. Computational instance 322 maydetermine that certain information in client-side logs 806 is related toa particular unique identifier based on the timestamps associated withthe client-side information indicating that it was being viewed or usedby the agent when the work item with that unique identifier was beingviewed or updated by the agent.

Another way in which the link between workflow state and agentactivities may be established is by locating the unique identifier in anactive window. In some cases, the unique identifier may be part of theURL for a particular website. When a web browser displaying theparticular website is active, the unique identifier may be retrievedfrom a screen capture through OCR or other techniques described above.This unique identifier may be associated with activities occurring onthe client device until another web page displaying a URL with anotherunique identifier is active. Another screen capture may capture the URLand use OCR to deduce the other unique identifier, and activities fromthat point forward may be associated with the other identifier.

The collected information from analyzing various data available on thedisplay, intercepting client-side event messages, and gathering datastored on the device may be used in various ways. In particular, thiscollected client-side data may be useful to determine why a workflow ora state thereof takes a particular amount of time for a particular agentto complete, and actions that may be taken to improve the efficacy ofthe workflow.

For example, a first incident describing an email server issue may beassigned to a first agent and a second incident describing a similarincident may be assigned to a second agent. The first agent may taketwenty minutes to mark the incident as resolved from in-progress,whereas it may take the second agent an hour before marking thein-progress incident as resolved.

From client side logs associated with activities of the first agentduring the 20-monite time period, it may be determined that the firstagent sent a few test emails, then logged on to the email server'sadministrative interface and changed some settings. From client sidelogs associated with activities of the second agent during the hour-longtime period, it may be determined that the second agent reviewing atraining presentation, searched the Internet, then logged on to theemail server's administrative interface and changed some settings. Theamount of time each agent spent on each of these activities (testemails, email server administrative interface, presentations, Internetsearching) may be determined from the respective client-side logs.

When collecting information on a client device such as client device802, agent privacy can be a concern. Accordingly, collection of theinformation might be done only with the authorization and knowledge ofthe agent. After such authorization is received, information collectionmay be periodic, event-driven, and/or specific to particular areas ofthe display. For example, client-side collector 804 may containmechanisms (e.g., buttons on a small window displayed on the graphicaluser interface of client device 802) to allow and/or disallowinformation collection, as well as to allow and/or disallow informationcollection from a specific part of the display, specific applications,etc. When information is being collected, the display may have a redframe around the portion of the display being recorded or exhibitanother indication that the user actions on the client-side device arebeing recorded.

Additionally or alternatively, screen captures of the display may betaken only when one or more events are detected (e.g., a mouseactuation, a keystroke, etc.). The detection of an event may indicateinteractions that an agent is having with client device 802 and that theareas of the screen are expected to change. Thus, recording what happensafter an event may facilitate collection of information whilemaintaining a reasonable amount of privacy.

Still alternatively or additionally, the information collection may bespecific to particular areas of the display. For example, onlyactivities that pertain to an active window (e.g., scrolling, or mouseactuations) may be recorded and/or only the current active window may bescreen captured. Thus, if the agent is viewing a presentation, windowsother than the presentation application (e.g., web browser, email, andmessaging application windows) will not be captured.

Further, the information collection may be specific to an allowed listor a blocked list. An allowed list may specify one or more applicationsand/or one or more network addresses, and information collection mayonly occur with respect to the applications and/or network addresseslisted in the allowed list. Conversely, a blocked list may specify oneor more applications and/or one or more network addresses for whichinformation collection may not occur. For example, if a web browser isopen to a page where the network address is on the blocked list,client-side collector may identify this address (e.g., by way of OCR orother techniques discussed above) and refrain from including thatinformation in client-side logs 806.

C. Workflow Improvements

As noted, computational instance 322 may integrate client-side logs 806with server-side logs 808 to provide a comprehensive representation ofagent activities when work items are in various states of a workflow.From these integrated logs, statistics may be generated and then used todrive workflow improvements.

FIG. 10 provides an example summary of workflow performance data thatcould be derived from integrated logs. Table 1000 contains workflowperformance data for incidents (either of one type or of various types)in the “in progress” state (as indicated in column 1002). Each row intable 1000 may indicate a different combination of applications (asindicated in column 1004) that were employed by the agent whileaddressing the incident. For each of these combinations, their frequency(as indicated in column 1006), the average number of steps taken by theagent (as indicated in column 1008), and the average duration of timethe agent spent taking these steps (as indicated in column 1010) can beconsidered. Here, steps may include the number of client-side and/orserver-side events that took place while the incident was in the “inprogress” state, where events may include client-side mouse actuations,keystrokes, switching between applications, and so on.

As an example of one type of improvement, computational instance 322 maydetermine the distribution of time that agents spend working on certaintypes of incidents in the “in progress” state. From this distribution,agents that are “outliers” in this distribution (e.g., taking more thanthe 90^(th) or 95^(th) percentile), may be identified. Based on theapplications used by these agents and possibly how these applicationsare used, computational instance 322 may recommend that these agentsobtain further training.

Alternatively, computational instance 322 may determine that such“outlier” agents do not have access to the proper software tools fordiagnosing incidents, and may recommend that these agents are providedwith additional software tools.

In some cases, the workflow itself may be identified as a problem, suchas certain states in the workflow never being entered, rarely beingentered, or being left shortly after being entered. In these cases,computational instance 322 may recommend that such states be removedfrom the workflow.

As another example, computational instance 322 may analyze theactivities and identify that a large number (e.g., greater than athreshold percentage) of incidents are in the “on hold” state. Thiscould indicate that these incidents are not being reevaluated in atimely fashion. Computational instance 322 may recommend that theprocess could be improved by automatically resetting incidents in the“on hold” state to be “in progress” after being “on hold” for a certainperiod of time.

FIG. 11 provides table 1100 that maps observations made about workflowperformance data to concrete recommendations for workflow improvement.In row 1102, the observation that an agent takes longer than 90% of allagents to resolve incidents may result in the recommendation to trainthat agent. In row 1104, the observation that an agent's computer is notinstalled with certain standard software tools (as determined fromdiscovery-like probes) may result in the recommendation that the agentis provided with access to such tools. In tow 1106, the observation thata workflow state is not being used (or only not being used in ameaningful way) may result in the recommendation that the workflow berevised, possibly to eliminate this state. Other examples orrecommendations to facilitate workflow improvements are also possible.

The embodiments described herein are unconventional because they makeuse of client-side data to improve server-side workflows. Thisclient-side data was previously unavailable to server devices carryingout the workflows, and thus could not be taken into account whenconsidering workflow improvements. In these embodiments, rich anddetailed information regarding application use and procedures employedby agents can be used to more accurately identify and rectify workflowinefficiencies.

VIII. EXAMPLE OPERATIONS

FIG. 12 is a flow chart illustrating an example embodiment. The processillustrated by FIG. 12 may be carried out by a computing device, such ascomputing device 100, and/or a cluster of computing devices, such asserver cluster 200. However, the process can be carried out by othertypes of devices or device subsystems. For example, the process could becarried out by a computational instance of a remote network managementplatform or a portable computer, such as a laptop or a tablet device.

The embodiments of FIG. 12 may be simplified by the removal of any oneor more of the features shown therein. Further, these embodiments may becombined with features, aspects, and/or implementations of any of theprevious figures or otherwise described herein.

Block 1200 may involve obtaining, from persistent storage, a server-sidelog collected by a server device, where the server-side log includes aset of entries indicating a unique identifier, and where the uniqueidentifier is assigned to a work item of a server-based applicationexecuted by the server device.

Block 1202 may involve receiving, from a client device disposed upon anetwork, a client-side log, where the client-side log includesoperational data related to usage of a client-based application executedby the client device.

Block 1204 may involve identifying, from the operational data, theclient-based application and one or more activities performed by theclient-based application.

Block 1206 may involve determining that the one or more activities arerelated to the unique identifier.

Block 1208 may involve, based on the one or more activities, determiningan action that can be taken to improve efficacy of the server-basedapplication.

Block 1210 may involve writing to the persistent storage, arepresentation of the action.

In some embodiments, the operational data may include a screen captureof a display of the client device, where identifying the client-basedapplication may comprise detecting a framed region within the screencapture that depicts an application user interface and determining theclient-based application based on a title bar, logo, or text that iswithin the framed region and that has a predetermined association withthe client-based application.

In some embodiments, the operational data may include a screen captureof a display of the client device, where identifying the one or moreactivities performed by the client-based application may comprise: (i)detecting a framed region within the screen capture that depicts anapplication user interface, wherein the application user interfacecontains text, (ii) determining that a subset of the text is within oneor more text boxes at pre-determined locations within the applicationuser interface or that the subset of the text is adjacent to one more ormore text boxes at the pre-determined locations, and (iii) determiningthe one or more activities based on the subset of the text.

In some embodiments, the operational data may include a screen captureof a display of the client device, where determining that the one ormore activities are related to the unique identifier comprisesdetermining that the unique identifier appears within the screencapture.

In some embodiments, the client-side log may include the uniqueidentifier, where determining that the one or more activities arerelated to the unique identifier is based on the unique identifierappearing in the client-side log along with the operational data.

In some embodiments, the server-based application may apply a statemachine to the work item, where the state machine may have a pluralityof states, where the server-side log identifies a particular state ofthe plurality of states to which the work item is assigned, and wherethe one or more processors may be further configured to associate theone or more activities with the particular state.

In some embodiments, associating the one or more activities with theparticular state may include determining, from the client-side log andthe server-side log that the one or more activities occurred while thework item was assigned to the particular state.

Some embodiments may further involve transmitting, to the client device,a blocked list specifying one or more applications or network addresses,where operational data is to be omitted from the client-side log for theone or more applications or when the client device accesses any of thenetwork addresses.

Some embodiments may further involve transmitting, to the client device,an allowed list specifying one or more applications or networkaddresses, where operational data may to be included in the client-sidelog only for the one or more applications or when the client deviceaccesses any of the network addresses.

In some embodiments, the operational data may identify the client-basedapplication, the unique identifier, and timestamps specifying when oneor more input pointer or keyboard activities relating to theclient-based application occurred on the client device, and wheredetermining the action that can be taken to improve efficacy of theserver-based application may be based on the timestamps.

In some embodiments, determining the action that can be taken to improveefficacy of the server-based application may comprise determining, basedon the timestamps, durations for each of the one or more activities,where the action is further based on the durations.

In some embodiments, determining the action that can be taken to improveefficacy of the server0based application may further comprise (i)determining that a particular duration for a particular activity of theone or more activities exceeds a threshold value, and (ii) based on theparticular duration exceeding the threshold value, determining theaction to be one or more of: recommending training of a user of theclient device on carrying out the particular activity, recommending thata new software tool be employed for carrying out the particularactivity, recommending that a new procedure be used when carrying outthe particular activity, or recommending that the particular activity beautomated.

In some embodiments, the server-side log may indicate a state of theserver-based application, where the persistent storage may also containa table mapping combinations of states of the server-based applicationand the one or more activities to specific actions, and wherein thespecific actions include, for a particular activity: recommendingtraining of a user of the client device on carrying out the particularactivity, recommending that a new software tool be employed for carryingout the particular activity, recommending that a new procedure be usedwhen carrying out the particular activity, or recommending that theparticular activity be automated.

IX. CLOSING

The present disclosure is not to be limited in terms of the particularembodiments described in this application, which are intended asillustrations of various aspects. Many modifications and variations canbe made without departing from its scope, as will be apparent to thoseskilled in the art. Functionally equivalent methods and apparatuseswithin the scope of the disclosure, in addition to those describedherein, will be apparent to those skilled in the art from the foregoingdescriptions. Such modifications and variations are intended to fallwithin the scope of the appended claims.

The above detailed description describes various features and operationsof the disclosed systems, devices, and methods with reference to theaccompanying figures. The example embodiments described herein and inthe figures are not meant to be limiting. Other embodiments can beutilized, and other changes can be made, without departing from thescope of the subject matter presented herein. It will be readilyunderstood that the aspects of the present disclosure, as generallydescribed herein, and illustrated in the figures, can be arranged,substituted, combined, separated, and designed in a wide variety ofdifferent configurations.

With respect to any or all of the message flow diagrams, scenarios, andflow charts in the figures and as discussed herein, each step, block,and/or communication can represent a processing of information and/or atransmission of information in accordance with example embodiments.Alternative embodiments are included within the scope of these exampleembodiments. In these alternative embodiments, for example, operationsdescribed as steps, blocks, transmissions, communications, requests,responses, and/or messages can be executed out of order from that shownor discussed, including substantially concurrently or in reverse order,depending on the functionality involved. Further, more or fewer blocksand/or operations can be used with any of the message flow diagrams,scenarios, and flow charts discussed herein, and these message flowdiagrams, scenarios, and flow charts can be combined with one another,in part or in whole.

A step or block that represents a processing of information cancorrespond to circuitry that can be configured to perform the specificlogical functions of a herein-described method or technique.Alternatively or additionally, a step or block that represents aprocessing of information can correspond to a module, a segment, or aportion of program code (including related data). The program code caninclude one or more instructions executable by a processor forimplementing specific logical operations or actions in the method ortechnique. The program code and/or related data can be stored on anytype of computer readable medium such as a storage device including RAM,a disk drive, a solid-state drive, or another storage medium.

The computer readable medium can also include non-transitory computerreadable media such as non-transitory computer readable media that storedata for short periods of time like register memory and processor cache.The non-transitory computer readable media can further includenon-transitory computer readable media that store program code and/ordata for longer periods of time. Thus, the non-transitory computerreadable media may include secondary or persistent long-term storage,like ROM, optical or magnetic disks, solid-state drives, or compact discread only memory (CD-ROM), for example. The non-transitory computerreadable media can also be any other volatile or non-volatile storagesystems. A non-transitory computer readable medium can be considered acomputer readable storage medium, for example, or a tangible storagedevice.

Moreover, a step or block that represents one or more informationtransmissions can correspond to information transmissions betweensoftware and/or hardware modules in the same physical device. However,other information transmissions can be between software modules and/orhardware modules in different physical devices.

The particular arrangements shown in the figures should not be viewed aslimiting. It should be understood that other embodiments could includemore or less of each element shown in a given figure. Further, some ofthe illustrated elements can be combined or omitted. Yet further, anexample embodiment can include elements that are not illustrated in thefigures.

While various aspects and embodiments have been disclosed herein, otheraspects and embodiments will be apparent to those skilled in the art.The various aspects and embodiments disclosed herein are for purpose ofillustration and are not intended to be limiting, with the true scopebeing indicated by the following claims.

What is claimed is:
 1. A system comprising: persistent storagecontaining a server-side log collected by a server device, wherein theserver-side log includes a set of entries indicating a uniqueidentifier, and wherein the unique identifier is assigned to a work itemof a server-based application executed by the server device; and one ormore processors configured to: receive, from a client device disposedupon a network, a client-side log, wherein the client-side log includesoperational data related to usage of a client-based application executedby the client device; identify, from the operational data, theclient-based application and one or more activities performed by theclient-based application; determine that the one or more activities arerelated to the unique identifier; based on the one or more activities,determine an action that can be taken to improve efficacy of theserver-based application; and write, to the persistent storage, arepresentation of the action.
 2. The system of claim 1, wherein theoperational data identifies the client-based application, the uniqueidentifier, and timestamps specifying when one or more input pointer orkeyboard activities relating to the client-based application occurred onthe client device, and wherein determining the action that can be takento improve efficacy of the server-based application is based on thetimestamps.
 3. The system of claim 2, wherein determining the actionthat can be taken to improve efficacy of the server-based applicationcomprises: determining, based on the timestamps, durations for each ofthe one or more activities, wherein the action is further based on thedurations.
 4. The system of claim 3, wherein determining the action thatcan be taken to improve efficacy of the server-based application furthercomprises: determining that a particular duration for a particularactivity of the one or more activities exceeds a threshold value; andbased on the particular duration exceeding the threshold value,determining the action to be one or more of: recommending training of auser of the client device on carrying out the particular activity,recommending that a new software tool be employed for carrying out theparticular activity, recommending that a new procedure be used whencarrying out the particular activity, or recommending that theparticular activity be automated.
 5. The system of claim 1, wherein theserver-based application applies a state machine to the work item,wherein the state machine has a plurality of states, wherein theserver-side log identifies a particular state of the plurality of statesto which the work item is assigned, and wherein the one or moreprocessors are further configured to: associate the one or moreactivities with the particular state.
 6. The system of claim 5, whereinassociating the one or more activities with the particular statecomprises: determining, from the client-side log and the server-sidelog, that the one or more activities occurred while the work item wasassigned to the particular state.
 7. The system of claim 1, wherein theoperational data includes a screen capture of a display of the clientdevice, and wherein identifying the client-based application comprises:detecting a framed region within the screen capture that depicts anapplication user interface; and determining the client-based applicationbased on a title bar, logo, or text that is within the framed region andthat has a predetermined association with the client-based application.8. The system of claim 1, wherein the operational data includes a screencapture of a display of the client device, and wherein identifying theone or more activities performed by the client-based applicationcomprises: detecting a framed region within the screen capture thatdepicts an application user interface, wherein the application userinterface contains text; determining that a subset of the text is withinone or more text boxes at pre-determined locations within theapplication user interface or that the subset of the text is adjacent toone more or more text boxes at the pre-determined locations; anddetermining the one or more activities based on the subset of the text.9. The system of claim 1, wherein the operational data includes a screencapture of a display of the client device, and wherein determining thatthe one or more activities are related to the unique identifiercomprises: determining that the unique identifier appears within thescreen capture.
 10. The system of claim 1, wherein the client-side logalso includes the unique identifier, and wherein determining that theone or more activities are related to the unique identifier is based onthe unique identifier appearing in the client-side log along with theoperational data.
 11. The system of claim 1, wherein the one or moreprocessors are further configured to: transmit, to the client device, ablocked list specifying one or more applications or network addresses,wherein operational data is to be omitted from the client-side log forthe one or more applications or when the client device accesses any ofthe network addresses.
 12. The system of claim 1, wherein the one ormore processors are further configured to: transmit, to the clientdevice, an allowed list specifying one or more applications or networkaddresses, wherein operational data is to be included in the client-sidelog only for the one or more applications or when the client deviceaccesses any of the network addresses.
 13. The system of claim 1,wherein the server-side log indicates a state of the server-basedapplication, wherein the persistent storage also contains a tablemapping combinations of states of the server-based application and theone or more activities to specific actions, and wherein the specificactions include, for a particular activity: recommending training of auser of the client device on carrying out the particular activity,recommending that a new software tool be employed for carrying out theparticular activity, recommending that a new procedure be used whencarrying out the particular activity, or recommending that theparticular activity be automated.
 14. A computer-implemented methodcomprising: obtaining, from persistent storage, a server-side logcollected by a server device, wherein the server-side log includes a setof entries indicating a unique identifier, and wherein the uniqueidentifier is assigned to a work item of a server-based applicationexecuted by the server device; receiving, from a client device disposedupon a network, a client-side log, wherein the client-side log includesoperational data related to usage of a client-based application executedby the client device; identifying, from the operational data, theclient-based application and one or more activities performed by theclient-based application; determining that the one or more activitiesare related to the unique identifier; based on the one or moreactivities, determining an action that can be taken to improve efficacyof the server-based application; and writing, to the persistent storage,a representation of the action.
 15. The computer-implemented method ofclaim 14, wherein the operational data includes a screen capture of adisplay of the client device, and wherein identifying the one or moreactivities performed by the client-based application comprises:detecting a framed region within the screen capture that depicts anapplication user interface, wherein the application user interfacecontains text; determining that a subset of the text is within one ormore text boxes at pre-determined locations within the application userinterface or that the subset of the text is adjacent to one more or moretext boxes at the pre-determined locations; and determining the one ormore activities based on the subset of the text.
 16. Thecomputer-implemented method of claim 14, wherein the client-side logalso includes the unique identifier, and wherein determining that theone or more activities are related to the unique identifier is based onthe unique identifier appearing in the client-side log along with theoperational data.
 17. The computer-implemented method of claim 14,wherein the server-based application applies a state machine to the workitem, wherein the state machine has a plurality of states, wherein theserver-side log identifies a particular state of the plurality of statesto which the work item is assigned, and wherein the method includes:associating the one or more activities with the particular state. 18.The computer-implemented method of claim 14, wherein the method furthercomprises: transmitting, to the client device, a blocked list specifyingone or more applications or network addresses, wherein operational datais to be omitted from the client-side log for the one or moreapplications or when the client device accesses any of the networkaddresses.
 19. The computer-implemented method of claim 14, wherein theoperational data identifies the client-based application, the uniqueidentifier, and timestamps specifying when one or more input pointer orkeyboard activities relating to the client-based application occurred onthe client device, and wherein determining the action that can be takento improve efficacy of the server-based application is based on thetimestamps.
 20. An article of manufacture including a non-transitorycomputer-readable medium, having stored thereon program instructionsthat, upon execution by a computing system, cause the computing systemto perform operations comprising: obtaining, from persistent storage, aserver-side log collected by a server device, wherein the server-sidelog includes a set of entries indicating a unique identifier, andwherein the unique identifier is assigned to a work item of aserver-based application executed by the server device; receiving, froma client device disposed upon a network, a client-side log, wherein theclient-side log includes operational data related to usage of aclient-based application executed by the client device; identifying,from the operational data, the client-based application and one or moreactivities performed by the client-based application; determining thatthe one or more activities are related to the unique identifier; basedon the one or more activities, determining an action that can be takento improve efficacy of the server-based application; and writing, to thepersistent storage, a representation of the action.